I guess one can only find the bug by getting two original boards and flashing
the BIOS of one of them and then comparing their functioning.
mk
> > Bug Report >
---------- > > To: > Linux Kernel Mailing List
>
> Cc:
> Reid rmaynard@nc.rr.com
> Kenneth chingk@ucs.orst.edu
> Roman Drahtmüller draht@suse.de
>
> I would send a copy of this to ABIT but they aren't very reachable. I don't
> know a point of contact for the macro-society known as Microsoft.
>
>
>
> The following is a collection of information and data accumulated after playin
g
> with a specific motherboard and a variety of operating systems (for 18 hours).
> The failure to install, run and operate some of the OS' on the board or rather
> operate them at the meant to be CPU speed.
>
>
>
> The report regards:
>
> Abit BX6 Rev. 2 also knows as
> Abit BX6 Rev. 2.0 also knows as
> Abit BX6-2.0
>
>
> and contains the following sections:
>
> 1. GENERAL
> 2. HARDWARE SETUP
> 3. PROBLEM SITUATION
> 4. SUMMARY
> 5. WEB RESEARCH
> 6. MY ANALYSIS
> 7. THANK YOU
> 8. KERNEL OOPSES
> 9. LINKS
>
>
>
> GENERAL
> -------
>
> The board was purchased in December 1999 (built into a machine) and came from
> the manufacturer with the BIOS 'BXR_MN.BIN'.
>
> The latest BIOS is 'BXR_QR.BIN'.
>
> The BIOS history can be found here:
> http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/bios/bx620.htm
>
> The machine is filled with a Pentium III CPU 550 MHz. I tested this CPU using
> the Intel test utility and this CPU is neither overclocked or been tampered
> with.
>
> This board has been specified to work with Linux at:
>
> http://lhd.zdnet.com/db/dispproduct.php3?DISP?334
>
> Throughout my research I have been in contact with BX6-2.0 users who had no
> trouble and others who had the same trouble as I did.
>
> This board has been known to be used by a variety of overclockers. In my setup
> no overclocked CPU has been used or in other words my CPU was never intended t
o
> be running above its meant to be speed. The target speed of the Pentium III 55
0
> MHz was always 550MHz.
>
>
> During my testing I have removed all unnecessary hardware from the setup tryin
g
> to find a hardware component that caused the problems. I could not however.
>
>
> HARDWARE SETUP
> --------------
>
> Abit BX6-2.0 (SLOT 1 mobo)
> Pentium III 550 Mhz
> Kingston Valueram 256 MB PC100
> LG CD-RW CED-8042B
> NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 32 MB AGP
> IBM 30.7 GB 75GXP DTLA-307030 (brand new so its got nothing to do with the
> drive; I know this drive has been having its own bad calls in the news but it
> is not the issue here)
> Lite-ON Monitor
>
> Over the course of my testing I also tried another stick of memory, a Trident
> 3Dimage 4MB AGP card and a Toshiba 24x CD-Rom. The same problem I am about to
> discuss occurred.
>
>
> PROBLEM SITUATION
> -----------------
>
> After the purchase in 1999 I installed SuSE 6.2 on the machine. I don't
> remember having any trouble at it and I am pretty sure it was at the CPU speed
> of 550MHz. The machine came with Win98 and has been running for 2 years with
> Win98. The SuSE install was only a test run back then and I had wiped it off
> the disk afterwards.
>
> 2002: My latest goal was installing Windows XP on this new drive in the
> machine. (The drive before was a DTLA-305030). I had updated the BIOS two
> months ago to QR and Win98 ran fine.
>
> For the next few paragraphs the CPU is running at 550MHz!!!
>
> I put in the XP CD and it booted and I formatted a 6 Gig partition in NTFS. In
> the install procedure it copies over a bunch of files and then reboots to then
> drive the rest of the installation from harddisk. On this reboot I got a Blue
> Screen Of Death. It reported that there was a Stop error when a process tried
> to write to read-only memory. I therefore removed all hardware and turned of
> caching and shadowing in the BIOS to diagnose the problem. The problem
> persisted and I get either BSOD's or stalls. The BSOD's report
> (DRIVER_)IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors now. Microsoft support pages give the
> same advice I already applied but the OS won't load.
>
> I then went back and installed Win98 to check for sure something wasn't out of
> order. It installed without hitch and booted and ran fine.
>
> I went back to installing XP with the same problem occuring.
>
> I went back to older BIOS. I tried MN, KU, HJ. It didn't help.
>
> I pulled out a set of Mandrake 8.1 CDs and it booted off CD but then stalled o
r
> crashed. I pulled out a old set of SuSE 6.4 CDs and it booted but as soon as
> the kernel loaded it oopsed.
>
> All while doing this I was searching the web for help and gathered tips from a
> couple of mailing lists.
>
> Accidentally I set the CPU to a lower speed than 550MHz and booted the machine
.
> The BIOS complained that the CPU was misconfigured and I should change the BIO
S
> settings but it also gave me the option to go ahead (F1) and boot anyhow.
>
> The CPU is at 366 MHz (underclocked)!!!!!
>
> I went ahead and suddenly XP booted.
>
> Here I went and pulled out my SuSE 6.4 CD and now it wouldn't oops anymore. I
> went ahead and installed SuSE 6.4 on a second partition. I rebooted and it
> booted just fine.
>
> I went back and set the CPU back to 550Mhz and booting XP or SuSE became
> impossible again. SuSE kernel dumped a large oops onto my screen.
>
> Today I got a set of RedHat 7.2 CDs and it will not install at 550MHz. It
> stalls or suddenly reboots. I set the CPU to 366 MHz again and installed RH
> onto another partition. My setup is now:
>
> /dev/hda1 XP
> /dev/hda2 SuSE 6.4
> /dev/hda3 swap
> /dev/hda4 RH 7.2
>
> After having installed RH I rebooted and it boots fine at 366 MHz. If I set th
e
> CPU to 550Mhz the RH kernel oopses.
>
>
> Now many people suggested to turn off about everything in the BIOS and work my
> way upwards. I did this and only left IDE controller enabled. It booted fine a
t
> 366 Mhz. As soon as I switched to 550 Mhz even with L2 Cache and L1 Cache
> disabled and any shadowing turned off too it would stall.
>
>
> SUMMARY
> -------
>
> Original motherboard allowed for Linux installation (SuSE 6.2) and runs Win98
> fine at speed 550MHz Pentium III CPU. No problems for two years and to this
> date with Win98.
>
> The BIOS was updated in late 2001 to QR. The machine still runs Win98 fine at
> 550MHz. Operating systems such as XP, RH, SuSE must be installed and run at 36
6
> MHz now. UNDERCLOCKED!!!
>
>
> WEB RESEARCH
> ------------
>
> I have dug into google and found quite some information. This problem has been
> known but occurs very rarely and in only special cases and I think I know why.
>
> If I ran XP at 550 Mhz and chose Safe Mode it would run down a list of modules
> loaded and suddenly stall at "driver/agp440.sys".
>
> I searched google and a ton of people using 2K or XP have trouble with the
> agp440.sys problem. This doesn't mean AGP is the cause here since XP doesn't
> dump out its real module loading log when loading. agp440.sys is just the last
> module mentioned before it stalls.
>
> The agp440.sys problem occurs also for many other boards and configurations
> (e.g. Athlon, P4 and other NVIDIA cards)
>
> I figured this was not the right direction.
>
> Having remembered that I once ran Linux on this board two years ago I figured
> its either the CPU or the mobo. I remembered I flashed the BIOS recently. I
> looked up what I could find and voila people did the same as me and had the
> same trouble:
>
> Reid reports that all his mobo can run is Win98 and neither 2K, Linux or BSDs
> runs:
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&frame=right&th=b5b6671ee8e4a3ad&seekm=q2
vZ
> 6.77281%24ru2.22650002%40typhoon.southeast.rr.com#link1
>
> A reverting to the old BIOS does not help. I contacted Reid and he still has n
o
> fix for the situation.
>
> I got another example which is exactly like mine and Reid's:
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=bx6+kernel+panic&hl=en&selm=37B6EE47.3D9A3AE
5%
> 40ucs.orst.edu&rnum=3
>
> Kenneth ran NT on his BX6-2. It worked wonderfully. Then he flashed his BIOS
> and it oopsed from thereon in. He went back to use his old BIOS but his OS is
> still unstable. He tried Mandrake on it then and it won't succeed but oopses.
>
>
> MY ANALYSIS
> -----------
>
> The board as it was manufactured was able to run all types of OS. Manypeople
> have assured me that is what they are doing.
>
> I and Reid though cannot run anything but Win9x. The thing that makes our case
> special is that we both flashed the BIOS and then tried to install XP or Linux
.
>
>
> I do wonder if the BIOS installed at the plant was in some way special and any
> BIOS flashed at home and downloaded from the web are containing inconsistencie
s
> which break the mobo from working with NT or Linux kernels. The fact that
> others run Linux and Nt fine on their mobo but my flashed and revertedly
> flashed mobo cannot makes me wonder.
>
>
> THANK YOU
> ---------
>
> I would love to contact Abit about this but they don't leave a single point of
> contact on their web pages.
>
> I appreciate any comments in regards to this issue. I will now report what the
> kernel errored on and it may help the hackers in building an opinion about thi
s
> issue.
>
> Thank you for reading this lengthy document! I could care less if Ican run a
> certain OS on this specific by today's standard's outdatedbox but it bugs me
> that there seems to have creaped in a bug intoABIT's board which makes it
> incompatible with a advanced kernel like the Linux 2.2 or 2.4 kernel and the N
T
> kernel as well but gives it theability to handle the functionality of the Win9
x
> kernel.
>
> I wish somebody would invest the time in researching this topic in detail.
>
> I know ABIT has their own Linux distro. I do not have a copy of it but I would
> be damn curious to know if their distro runs on their ownboard after a BIOS
> flash.
>
> Thanks for your time and if you need more info contact me,
>
> Marcel
>
>
> KERNEL OOPSES
> -------------
>
> RH 7.2 default i686 kernel (I think its 2.4.7):
>
> EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
> Freeing unused kernel memory: 220k freed.
> CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 0000000000000004
> Bank 3: b20000000002010a
> Kernel panic: CPU context corrupt
> In interrupt handler - not syncing
>
>
> SuSE 6.4 default 2.2.14 kernel:
>
> Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 05efa769.2%
> current->tss.cr3 = 00101000, %cr3 = 00101000
> *pde = 00000000
> Oops: 0002
> CPU: 0
> EIP: 0010:[<c011825>]
> EFLAGS: 00010013
> eax: 000000ff ebx: c0289f24 ecx: 00008c7e edx: c0289f24
> esi: 20000001 edi: 00000000 ebp: c0289e6c esp: c0289e74
> ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018
> Process swapper (pid: 0, process nr: 0, stackpage=c0289000)
> Stack: c0289f24 24000001 0000000e c0289f24 c026ad58 00000001 c0289eacc01d43b4
> 00000001 00000695............
> Call Trace: ........................
> Code: 28 8b 45 08 c7 45 f4 00 00 00 00 c7 45 f0 00 00 00 00 89 45
> Aiee, killing interrupt handler
> Kernel panic: Attempted to kill idle task!
> In swapper task - not syncing.
>
>
>
>
> Kenneth's Mandrake 6.0 Oops:
>
> Kernel panic: LRU block list corrupted
> Unable to handle kernul NULL pointer dereference at virtual address
> 00000028
> current->tss.cr3 = 00101000, %cr3 = 00101000
> *pde = 00000000
> Oops: 0000
> CPU: 0
> .
> .
> .
>
>
> LINKS
> -----
>
> Abit Support:
> http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/
>
> Abit BX6 Rev. 2:
> http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/bios/bx620.htm
>
>
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